CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpdebuggingcodeigniter
Thibaut Delarbre
Thibaut Delarbre

Reputation: 201

Debugging in CodeIgniter (and MVC)

Often times I feel the need to dump a variable for debugging purpose. In CodeIgniter I am struggling to do that since I cannot simply "echo" a variable without passing it to the view first, which I think is pain-staking. I have read the official documentation, though I had found a good solution with the log_message function but cannot make it work, even though I successfully made the "logs" folder writable and changed the "threshold" as advised. Any suggestions?

https://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/errors.html

Upvotes: 20

Views: 89057

Answers (4)

Ritesh Kumar
Ritesh Kumar

Reputation: 75

log_message('debug',print_r($array_or_object_you_want_to_print,TRUE));

This will print your array nicely into log . Following is the output example :

[1] => Array
    (
        [uid] => 10049082
        [phone_id] => 2
        [friend_status] => 0
        [friend_event_hide_status] => 
    )

[2] => Array
    (
        [uid] => 10042768
        [phone_id] => 4
        [friend_status] => 3
    )

[3] => Array
    (
        [uid] => 10078255
        [phone_id] => 6
        [friend_status] => 2
    )

[4] => Array
    (
        [uid] => 10078255
        [phone_id] => -1
        [friend_status] => 1
        [name] => Rajesh 
    )

[5] => Array
    (
        [uid] => 10078255
        [phone_id] => -1
        [friend_status] => 1
        [name] => ritesh kumar
    )

[6] => Array
    (
        [uid] => 10078255
        [phone_id] => -1
        [friend_status] => 1
        [name] => Le
    )

Upvotes: 4

YahyaE
YahyaE

Reputation: 1057

I think the answer is you are looking for is: Codeigniter - Developer's Debug Helper

You can add this file to application/helper folder. Then autoload vayes_helper in application/config/autoload.php for generic use. Then all you need to is writing:

vdebug($variable); // In Controllers, Models, Libraries, Helpers
<?=vdebug($variable)?> // In View files

Upvotes: 8

Jordan Harper
Jordan Harper

Reputation: 301

It's not good practice, but you can output anything to the browser at any point in execution (from core classes, libraries, models and controllers) by simply using print_r() at the point you want to output the info.

Of course, this will sometimes not display as there may be redirects/routes/etc that take the user to the next step in the controller execution, but if you want to suppress this (again, for debug purposes only), you can use:

print_r($string_or_variable_to_debug);
die();

The die() command will stop all execution and leave you with just the info you want to output.

Using log_message() is better practice, but it's difficult to understand why you're not having success there if you say you've followed the following steps:

  1. Make sure that your logs folder is set to be writable
  2. Set $config['log_threshold'] to 2, 3 or 4
  3. Used the function like so: log_message('debug','Message you want to log');

If you want to use print_r() to nicely format an array or object inside the log message, then you'll need to set the second parameter of print_r() to TRUE, like so:

log_message('debug',print_r($array_or_object,TRUE));

Upvotes: 28

SubRed
SubRed

Reputation: 3187

You need to set your $config['log_threshold'] in file config.php since by default it's 0 (no logs)

  • 0 = Disables logging, Error logging TURNED OFF
  • 1 = Error Messages (including PHP errors)
  • 2 = Debug Messages
  • 3 = Informational Messages
  • 4 = All Messages

Upvotes: 16

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